Trust and Privacy Concerns Among Cancer Survivors Who Did Not Visit a Research Website Offering Free Genetic Counseling Services for Families: Survey Study.

backgroundDigital health tools, such as websites, now proliferate to assist individuals in managing their health. With user input, we developed the Your Family Connects (YFC) website to promote access to genetic services for survivors of ovarian cancer and their relatives. Although we estimated that half or more would access the website, only 18% of invited survivors did so. We assessed the extent to which perceived relevance of the information provided, trust, and privacy concerns influenced decisions not to access the website.

objectiveWe designed a theory-based cross-sectional survey to explore the following questions: (1) To what extent did nonresponders endorse privacy concerns? (2) Were privacy concerns associated with recall of receiving the website invitation, time since diagnosis, age, and race? (3) Could we identify profiles of nonresponders that would guide the development of future interventions to encourage engagement in health websites for families affected by inherited cancers?

methodsA sample of survivors who were eligible to access the website yet did not respond to the study invitation was identified by linking study IDs to the Georgia Cancer Registry information. The survey was brief and contained 27 items, including recall of the invitation, interest in ovarian cancer information, benefits of using health websites, trust in health websites, and trust in university-based health research. We conducted factor analyses, regression analyses, ANOVA, correlation analyses, and logistic regression to address research questions.

resultsOf the 650 nonresponders to whom we sent the short survey, 368 (56.3%) responded and provided sufficient data for analysis. The mean response of 2.57 on the trust scale was significantly below the scale midpoint of 3 (t

conclusionsThe nonresponders in the present study-particularly the White nonresponders-were skeptical of website platforms regardless of whether they recalled receiving a website invitation or not. Social marketing approaches geared toward building trust in web platforms by building a relationship with an information consumer and in collaboration with trusted organizations warrant further investigation.

trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04927013; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04927013.